Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Smoking

I was walking by the entrance to the Kotel and a religious man was lighting a cigarette. I made a harsh face showing how I hate that stuff and took a few steps to the side as I walked by to avoid smelling the smoke.

A while later he came up to me and thanked me.

"What for?"

"I don't smoke very often and when I lighted that cigarette I thought maybe I shouldn't be smoking in this place and you walked by and made a face at me and I knew that Hashem sent you to tell me not to smoke here."

"He sent me to tell you not to smoke anywhere, not just here."

Danny, a rabbi friend of mine has smoked cigarettes for most of his life. He tried to quit from time to time but always went back to them. Now he has that horrible disease. He (G-d forbid) is at the end of his life. He is barely into his sixties. I begged him time after time to stop but he wouldn't listen. Only a miracle will save his life.

I saw a couple of other men here in the Old City smoking and I said, "You know what is going on with Danny, right?" They both made a sad face and nodded that they did.

"Then why are you still smoking?"

They smiled meekly and said something like, "What to do?" as if they do not have it within their power to stop.

I really do not understand how the rabbis allow that poison, and the governments, too. They say that now some 8 million people a year will die from smoking, and still the governments allow the tobacco companies to sell that addictive poison to anyone who is foolish enough to buy it. The tobacco companies seem to be evil drug dealers.

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Kol HaKavod to you Rabbi GutmanWe went to a big wedding in Lakewood a few months ago for the children of a well known Rabbi from Jerusalem.We are Baal Teshuvah so we were a little nervous going by ourselves cause we did not really know many people.The guests were all Chassidic from Israel and NY.....with big Streimels , etc! But as we walked in many of them were smokingIn the front of the building. I was shocked cause I thought that that they were not hiding it either from the children and also Made people walk through their smoke....And I thought I would not look frum enough. To them ? Davora Feiga